Came from a Civ2 multiplayer game with my friend.
The Setup
By this point in the game (1800's), we had fought many wars together, and were steadfast allies. I had control of all of Asia, whereas he had Europe. Between us was a weaker nation, and the north and south America's had their own civs. I can't recall what was happening in Africa. We were both planning for war into America, in which he would attack the east and I the west. It was to be the culmination of our glorious game.
The Premise
But...for the
entire game he had been proudly mentioning his 'heroic war ship' which had helped win him at least one of his many wars. It was just a caravel, but he had 'officially retired it.' At this point it was a 'museum ship' stationed in the Mediterranean. Given the amount he was proudly talking about it, it had to go. I would have to launch a surprise attack of the highest order.
The Plan
Entering the modern age meant one thing - nukes. More to the point, nukes and submarines. And I didn't intend to just blast his caravel out of the water, I intended to make sure his entire empire was crippled. And so it took a couple of hours of slowly getting the techs and producing the forces I needed in order to attack. And at 4am in the morning, this only increased the tension - not only was a worried about if I could pull it off, but could I pull it off before one of us had to call it a night.
Moving the Pieces
More importantly, was maintaining a sense of being allies despite slowly moving subs towards his lands. I openly talked about my developments in the nuclear programme and humbly mentioned that I was unable to launch an attack into America as my military was too weak
The final part was the most tense, as I had to time the final moves just right to make sure I could give maximum damage, use the subs to attack his navy and do it without him noticing. He didn't. All I got on MSN was a quiet "what are you doing?" as I cancelled the alliance and all other friendship pacts. Then I launched the nukes.
Checkmate
The most delightful part of the whole operation was not that I utterly wiped out his main cities or his navies. It wasn't even the fantastic feeling of joy as that museum ship went up in the most satisfying nuclear explosion I have ever known in Civ, it's the fact that I can still mention it in conversation today and I'll get an angry reaction out of him. No guilt over breaking an honest alliance, just the fact that that damned 'museum ship' - the pinnacle of his civilizations history - was brought down by the greatest surprise attack I could ever have pulled off
